A guide to the 2018 New York congressional primaries

ALBANY — The biggest difference between the congressional primaries that will be held in New York on Tuesday and those in years past is the massive number of Democrats with no experience in elected office who are seeking their party’s nomination in Republican-held districts in 2018.

One of the narratives that has dominated national political discourse during Donald Trump’s presidency is centered on a perceived spike in the number of Democrats and women who are launching campaigns in anticipation of a so-called blue wave. That trend has mostly missed New York, where the fields for state and local offices have been essentially unchanged over the past two years.

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In the nine Republican-held congressional seats, however, the blue wave does seem real, at least in terms of interest. Thirty-four Democratic hopefuls are vying to get on the ballot in those districts. Two years ago, only a dozen Democrats ran in these districts, including seven who ran unopposed for their party’s nomination.

In addition to these red-seat primaries, there are also Democratic contests for five solidly blue districts in New York City, a race for an open seat in Rochester and a Republican primary on Staten Island.

Here’s a look at the major party contests that will appear on the ballot Tuesday.

The primary for this Upper Hudson Valley district has been a rarity in New York politics — a race where many candidates have regularly appeared before voters to make their case while mostly refraining from personal attacks.

Ask 10 local residents who they think is most likely to win the primary, and four will likely point to Antonio Delgado, an attorney whose resume includes stints as a Rhodes scholar and Los Angeles-based rapper. He has led the Democratic field in fundraising for most of the cycle, and the $2.3 million he’s brought in tops even the incumbent’s $2 million. One internal poll leaked from primary opponent Erin Collier’s campaign last week shows him with 21 percent of the vote, with his nearest challengers at 14 percent.

But the six remaining respondents will all make reasonable cases for why the other candidates in the field have a chance of winning. And in a district as varied as this one, with urban areas like Kingston, scores of rural towns near places like Cooperstown and enclaves for Brooklyn expats like Hudson, a high turnout among one demographic or geographic group could be enough to give any one of the candidates a plurality.

The other contenders include veteran Pat Ryan, Woodstock attorney Dave Clegg, former diplomat Jeff Beals and medical device company president Brian Flynn. Collier, a former agricultural economist in the Obama administration, joined the race after some of her opponents had been campaigning for nearly a year. But she might benefit from the fact that she’s the only woman in a crowded field, something she has readily highlighted.

Much of the late momentum seems to be with Gareth Rhodes, a former aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In the past week, he’s been endorsed by several groups that can have a big sway in a Democratic primary, including the Hotel Trades Council, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the New York State Nurses Association and the New York Times editorial board.

For Democrats facing such a large field, a candidate's perceived electability against Faso in the fall is just as important as his or her policy positions. A predecessor district was won by Democrats three times between 2006 and 2009, and while the area seems to have grown more liberal since then, Republicans have won each election this decade. Frustrated by this losing streak in one of the state’s most competitive seats, Democrats have gone so far as to encourage New York City residents with second homes in the district to switch their registration.

This Central New York district is the state’s most volatile. It was won by a Republican in 2006, a Democrat in 2008, a Republican in 2010 and a Democrat in 2012 before Republican Katko won in 2014 and 2016.

Democrats dodged the internal bickering that has befallen them in other Republican districts around the state this year when county leaders rallied behind Syracuse University assistant professor Dana Balter in February. Her opponents all dropped out, leaving her with a smooth path to the nomination.

But at the last possible minute — only nine days before petitions were due — Juanita Perez Williams joined the fray, just three days after contributing to Balter’s campaign.

Perez Williams, a former naval officer, state official and unsuccessful Syracuse mayoral candidate last year, had been encouraged to run by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a fact that has led to heated tensions between the local and national parties in a race that had been on track to remain quiet until the fall. She has said her decision was driven by concerns that Balter would not attract the national attention or campaign contributions that could help oust Katko. (Balter has still managed to outraise her new challenger, bringing in $109,000 in the most recent final period to Perez Williams’ $77,000.)

The only public poll conducted of the race showed Perez Williams with a 45-32 lead. Given the dynamics of the primary, however, it’s not too difficult to imagine a scenario in which the local Democrats who have been the most engaged in the race favor Balter. And if these folks are the most likely to show up Tuesday, the possibility of a win by their favored candidate shouldn’t be written off.

The easternmost district on Long Island has traditionally been competitive, and was held by a Democrat for a dozen years before Zeldin won his first term in 2014. But the incumbent is popular, and his seat no longer makes regular appearances on lists of toss-up districts. Similarly, the south-central Long Island district held by King for a quarter-century is rarely mentioned as a potentially competitive seat.

But Democrats have some hope in both of these districts. Last May, Democrats won an Assembly district in which they hadn’t topped a third of the vote for several decades, and a neighboring district that had been Republican since 1978 was flipped in an April special election. Last November’s elections were even better for Democrats on the island, with the party taking control of Hempstead (the country’s 18th-largest municipality, with nearly 800,000 people) for the first time in a century and even winning a Suffolk County sheriff’s race that the party seemed to be trying to intentionally lose.

In the Zeldin seat, five Democrats are attempting to be the potential beneficiaries of this wave.

Investment firm executive Perry Gershon has spent the most money by a wide margin, largely due to the $900,000 he’s lent to his campaign, while former Suffolk County Legislator Kate Browning has finished second in fundraising. They’re joined by former teacher and county Legislator Vivian Viloria-Fisher, physicist Elaine DiMasi and former New York City Council staffer David Pechefsky.

The King seat is a more typical two-way primary battle. Suffolk County Legislator DuWayne Gregory has been backed by both county Democratic Chairman Rich Schaffer and the Working Families Party. He’s also won the support of the Cuomo-created Women’s Equality Party, despite the fact that he’s a man running against a woman.

That woman, Liuba Grechen Shirley, has been part of an insurgent collection of Suffolk Democrats who have been critical of the party’s operations and willingness to cut deals with Republicans. The race, as such, can be seen as a test of the strength of this local liberal rebellion.

Grechen Shirley, regardless of what happens Tuesday, already has succeeded in making her mark on politics in one significant way. She’s responsible for a decision from the Federal Election Commission that found candidates can spend campaign money on child care, earning her the praise of Hillary Clinton.

This Adirondacks-area district, most of which falls much closer to Montreal than to New York City, is occasionally mentioned as a possibility for a Democratic pickup. That was also the case in 2016, when Stefanik went on to win a second term in a 37-point landslide. Democrats did, however, win the three elections preceding Stefanik’s 2014 victory, so the race shouldn’t be completely written off.

The five Democrats running have largely split the endorsements of top liberal groups — Assembly staffer Patrick Nelson has been backed by the New York Progressive Action Network, while its local affiliate is supporting former St. Lawrence County Legislator Tedra Cobb. Numerous local Democratic elected officials have backed Emily Martz, who has worked at an economic development nonprofit, while thrift store owner Katie Wilson has the support of the Working Families Party. And former MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan has been endorsed by a handful of local unions as well as another one-time cable news show host, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

This Southern Tier district is another yet another seat that has been won by Democrats in recent memory, but where the party faces an uphill battle against a popular incumbent — Reed won his 2016 race with a comfortable 58 percent of the vote.

There haven’t been any public polls conducted on the five Democrats hoping to challenge him. Retired cardiologist Linda Andrei has spent the most money by a wide margin, and a few local outlets have noted that the attacks at the end of the race, usually a decent indicator of what internal polls show, have centered on Tracy Mitrano, Cornell University’s former IT director.

Every couple of election cycles, liberal Democrats make a lot of noise about how it’s a year in which primary challengers have a good chance of ousting establishment-friendly incumbents. These challengers have never won — in the past 25 years, only one incumbent New York congressional representative has been ousted after losing a Democratic primary, and that was a Long Island Republican who switched parties mid-term.

But this year, there’s at least a rational argument for thinking a couple of these challengers might pull out victories. In an age in which the state’s politics have been dominated by the Trump presidency, the thinking goes, angry and energized Democrats will show up in droves, and non-establishment candidates will stand a chance.

So far, there hasn’t been any evidence that this is a likely scenario in New York, where party machines arguably remain more powerful than anywhere else in the country. In the seven largest localities with Democratic primaries in 2017, turnout was an uninspiring 15 percent.

But it’s not implausible to imagine a scenario in which the hype from the Democratic liberal wing is actually backed up when higher-level offices are at stake. These congressional primaries will thus certainly be watched closely by Cuomo and the former members of the state Senate’s IDC, who are all similarly facing liberal challengers who mostly lack the experience and baggage that incumbency brings.

Observers are closely following former Obama staffer Suraj Patel’s challenge against Maloney. There are many similarities between that contest and Maloney’s primary against Reshma Saujani in 2010, when a young challenger ran for the seat despite a lack of experience in lower-level office, but gained widespread attention when she showed she could be financially competitive with the incumbent. (Maloney wound up winning that race with over 80 percent of the vote.)

In Queens, former Bernie Sanders supporter Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has launched a spirited campaign against Crowley, his county’s party chairman and one of the top Democrats in the House.

The open seat

CD-25 (Louise Slaughter)

The race to replace Slaughter, who died earlier this year, is Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Morelle’s to lose. Generally popular among both business advocates and many of the state’s most liberal politicians, Morelle’s entrance into the race coincided with other prominent area Democrats declaring they wouldn’t run. And his colleagues certainly seem confident he’ll succeed: Last week, the final hour of the Assembly’s annual session turned into an emotional going-away celebration for the second-highest-ranking upstate Democrat in state government.

But before he can think about the November ballot, Morelle will face Rochester City Council Vice President Adam McFadden, Brighton Town Board member Robin Wilt and former television news anchor Rachel Barnhart in Tuesday’s primary. The majority leader has dominated fundraising in the contest, bringing in $635,000 in recent months. Wilt, his closest challenger, has raised $41,000.

Donovan is the only Republican in New York who is facing a primary race this June, and it’s certainly a competitive one. Predecessor Michael Grimm, who resigned the seat after pleading guilty to a federal tax evasion felony in 2014 and admitting that he had committed a variety of other crimes, is making a comeback attempt. And despite Grimm's baggage and Donovan’s proven popularity on Staten Island, a poll released earlier this month showed the challenger with a 47-37 lead.

There’s a crowded field of candidates on the Democratic side, but the front-runner seems to be Max Rose, a former health care executive and Army veteran. He’s raised $1.61 million so far, compared to $1.57 million for Donovan and $194,000 for his closest Democratic challenger, stagehand Omar Vaid, and has dominated the battle for endorsements.